Last Friday I got an email from my sweet friend, Amber saying that there would be live music at one of the quaintest little coffee shops in town located in Full Circle Bookstore. I didn’t know what our evening plans were yet, but the husband and I are always down for live music! We arrived about an hour late and finally found a seat in the far back corner. And when I say a seat I really mean a seat. We shared it. I never mind having an excuse to get a little closer to the husband anyway

I was so excited to meet Amber for the first time! She was exactly like I had pictured her, which I think is such a great thing. I love it when people are so real on their blogs that when you meet them IRL they are exactly as you imagined them. Amber also had her two cute kiddos and her husband with her, and I loved getting to meet the whole family. Sadly, the picture of us must have been eaten by my camera because it is no where to be found.

The music was great too – a group of violinists called The Stringents who covered all kinds of old and new songs. We love groups like that! Anyway, I got so caught up in talking about our time with Olive over the weekend, and I totally forgot to mention our epic Friday night!

——————–

This morning the husband and I got our mojo back by heading out for our four miler before the sun had even shown its face. We both had a great run despite the hills, crazy strong wind and a short bout of stomach troubles for me. It sure felt good to have a great workout already done by 7am. Love it when we drag ourselves out of bed that early!

After sending the husband off to work and taking a quick shower, I decided to make some breakfast. After browsing a few recipes online, I finally settled on Angela’s spelt pancake recipe.

It was super easy – just a matter of mixing the dry ingredients and then adding milk! I actually had to add in more milk after mixing it up because it was a little too thick; other than that I followed the recipe exactly.

plus

equals

These were pretty tasty. They were maybe a little too dense for my “loving”, but overall not bad.

Also making its debut in my kitchen this morning: coconut butter. For the last couple of weeks I have not been able to get the smooth, tropical white goodness out of my head. Last spring I bought my first and only jar because it was on sale at our local health food store. It was Artisana Cacao Bliss Raw Chocolate Coconut Butter, and it was divine. Considering I really didn’t want to go spend $10+ on a jar today, I decided to try my hand at making my own.

Unfortunately it turned out to be a little bit harder than I thought, and I ended up looking like this:

Coconut in my hair. coconut in my eyelashes. coconut everywhere really. I didn’t even know it was there until about an hour later, too. Glad I work from home currently.

Anyway. I started out by adding 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut to the Vitamix and setting it on variable speed at about 5 or 6.

It seemed to work at first, but then I couldn’t get it to stop sticking to the sides, and I began to feel like I wasn’t making any progress at all. So I added another 1/2 cup, thinking that it might help to have more, but also hoping I wasn’t just wasting even more of my precious shredded coconut. This helped for another minute or so, but then the same thing kept happening.

At this point I was getting really frustrated (read: hungry) , so I just slathered some of the coconut chunks (and apple butter!) on my piping hot pancakes and called it breakfast.

But a little while later, I was back at it. At this point, I was just so mad that it wasn’t working that I probably would have done just about anything to salvage it…so I added more coconut. One whole cup more. Desperate times people….

Hallelujah, it worked! In fact, it worked amazingly well. Within minutes the mess in my Vitamix had turned into a creamy pool of white just ready to be poured out in one smooth stream. Beauty.

Lesson learned. When in doubt, add more coconut. I think that might become my life motto actually…kind of has a nice ring to it.

Now I’m ready to start practicing with add-ins, namely cocoa. Perfect in a green monster, on an Ezekiel english muffin, as an oatmeal topper and much more!

I definitely think this would also work in a regular food processor as well.

I’m off to work on more job applications. I’m quickly learning that applying for jobs could be it’s own full-time job, and honestly I wouldn’t really mind it. Does that exist?

What’s your dream job? If you could restart at age 18 and do anything you wanted to, what would it be?
I would either go to school for a combination of nutrition and writing or just a degree in writing – like journalism maybe. With an English Education degree I was somewhat close to that, but it seems maybe not quite close enough.

12 Responses to “when in doubt…”

How fun on the meet up! I hope we get to meet one day. I often look like a mess after I’ve been in the kitchen. I don’t know that I’d want to go back and start over so much as just move forward now. I would love to own a neat little boutique that sold refurbished items (like furniture, home decor).

I’m so happy you both showed up and I finally got to meet you! Heee! You were just as I imagined too. I’m sad the picture is gone I should’ve taken an arm shot with my iPhone. This won’t be the last time for a photo op bwa ha ha!

If I could go back and do anything, I would have gotten my Personal Trainer Certification sooner but no worries! I’m pretty sure if I played with coconut it would have gotten all over my hair and face and floor too lol

I got certified through NASM, and I ordered the materials through the mail. I got a book (big one), study guide,instructional DVDs, and there was an online course study guide as well. I used it all and it was great! It was a little expensive, but NASM is a great certification!